Organizations face issues inherent in the varying degrees of management and oversight required at different levels of the organization. Each level requires a different use and understanding of data related to projects and programs that are best supported by the technologies that target the needs of that particular level.
In trying to meet investment objectives, organizations frequently fall short of desired outcomes. For instance, in decisions can be inconsistent or take too long to impact the needs of a rapidly changing environment, or resources can be expended without meeting the required objectives. However, in todays’s environment, it is critical that we obtain our objectives and utilize resources efficiently across all of these functions: Governance, Decision Making, Resourcing, Risk Management in addition to the use of tools supporting these functions.
Our approach utilizes OBIEE, Primavera Portfolio Management, Primavera P6 Project Portfolio Management, and Risk Analysis, integrating them into a complete suite of products that supports the existing processes within the organization or that support new processes developed to enable optimized performance. Our solution goes beyond technology implementation by providing a methodology-based solution to develop and/or improve processes to address the business requirements of the organization.
Integrating Oracle products to optimize performance over the entire investment lifecycle
Primavera Portfolio Management (aka ProSight)
Market leader in Enterprise Portfolio Management and CPIC
Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
Market leader in Project and Program Management
Primavera Risk Analysis (aka Pertmaster)
Advanced Risk Analysis and Planning for projects
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)
Market leader for Business Intelligence platform
Our OBIEE dashboards tie into the data generated in the daily management of projects and portfolios and provide an executive and management view of information across systems. With OBIEE we can go beyond simply looking at projects or investments and to look at all the data in new ways.
Guident implemented a pilot solution for a government client that sought to achieve these and similar benefits. In putting an OBIEE interface for reporting on top of two instances of Primavera ProSight, we were able to see data from disparate systems on one screen, reduce data manipulation to generate reports, improve data quality by highlighting discrepancies, and provide drill down capabilities
In order to solve the business problem, the integrated process must cover the entire lifecycle from the time a need is identified until the time a project is closed. Our technology solution is founded in process, and our team is as skilled in process development and improvement as we are in technology implementations. This diagram represents the overarching process that drives the solution, keeping in mind that the solution would be tailored to the client’s existing processes.
We will return to this graphic again as we walk through the demo.
Users, normally from the program office or the Program Management Office (PMO), use ProSight to enter the business case information, including critical information about the initiative, including the estimated cost, high level milestones, alignment to strategic objectives, and risks.
Managers and Decision Makers then use the business case data to view investments side by side, to provide both graphical and tabular views to answer specific questions or to provide decision support. For example, leaders may be concerned about the level of estimated spending for each element of the organization if certain initiatives were funded. By using investor maps during review meetings, they can answer these questions – and many other using the myriad of features available in the maps, including the ability to build maps quickly and to conduct what if analysis. They can also use scorecards to view and sort a variety of information about the investments and to record decisions quickly in review meetings.
At this stage, leaders are deciding what investments they want to pursue… but not necessarily how much money to allocate to each investment. This is a high-level decision that focuses planning effort on those investments that align to organizational priorities.
Since investments are not projects, and typically will break down into one or more supporting projects or programs, the next step is to identify those supporting projects/programs in order to drive planning efforts. At this point, the high level estimate is broken down to the project level, and financial estimates are apportioned to each project calculated as a percentage (as we have done here) or entered manually. This step ensures the alignment of projects to investments to enable reconciliation between estimated investments and executed projects.
We use the existing P6/ProSight bridge that is included in the ProSight tool to import project data from ProSight to P6, including the high level milestones and the estimated costs. The project team then uses P6 to plan each project project, including the WBS, activities, schedule, costs, and resources.
A scoring model provides a basis for prioritization. It should not be seen as providing the “final answer”. Instead, as the decisions become more refined, the priorities may differ slightly from the results of the scoring model. By providing the ability to capture both interim and final priority decisions, ProSight enables the ability to look back and see how the decision was made for a particular investment or group of investments. In addition, the maps and scorecards enable multiple views of the data as a basis for decisions. For instance, you might use a scorecard to record decisions and then use a map to see the results of those decisions and the impact on criticality scores. You might set a goal on a map and then pick and choose investments that will help you to achieve that goal. You might look at the strategic objectives and see how much your are actually investing in each for a particular set of investments. You might look at how the criticality score aligns to the strategic value score and identify where there are gaps – and maybe even identify where the priorities between competing guidance documents are in conflict. The maps and scorecards using existing data can be built on the fly to address questions raised during a discussion. The decisions from this step of the process feeds the allocation of funds in the next step.
Funding is allocated to investments until the established budget goals are met. If necessary, a data interface can be custom-built between ProSight and the financial management system to import the financial data needed to accomplish this step. Once allocated to the investment, the funding is further allocated to the project. Again, this can be done through manual entry (as shown here) or through a calculated percentage. Frequently, a project may not receive full funding, which will impact either the project plan, or the risk contingency built into the plan.
Funding is allocated to investments until the established budget goals are met. If necessary, a data interface can be custom-built between ProSight and the financial management system to import the financial data needed to accomplish this step. Once allocated to the investment, the funding is further allocated to the project. Again, this can be done through manual entry (as shown here) or through a calculated percentage. Frequently, a project may not receive full funding, which will impact either the project plan, or the risk contingency built into the plan.
The process for adjusting the projects is identical to the planning and analysis efforts completed in Steps 2 and 3. We go between P6 and Risk Analysis to plan and analyze until we have a plan that meets our funding allocation and our target confidence thresholds. As a note, Risk Analysis results can be used to educate leaders on the impact of underfunding projects. For instance, they may only allocate 60% of the funds, but expect that the project will still meet its target dates. After adjusting the projects, Project Managers can then go back to leaders and tell them the statistical probability of meeting those targets with the reduced funding as a way to communicate impacts.
Dashboards such as this one in P6 provide an at-a-glance assessment of project health, enabling rapid identification and response to projects in trouble.
To recap, we have walked through our PPFM process and demonstrated how the tools and the process work hand in hand to address the most pressing business problems related to finance, risk, performance, and capabilities.
Here are some of the key features and benefits of our Oracle PPFM solution.
Guident integrates existing processes and Oracle technologies to allow your organization to meet challenges of transparency and accountability by tying together decisions, planning, execution, and reporting to optimize performance.
